A Peek Under the Hood: Heroin, Hope, and Operation Tune-Up

2023 First Place Winner, True Crime, Firebird Book Award 2024 Finalist, Narrative Nonfiction & True Crime, American Writing Award 2024 Top Ten Finalist, Nonfiction, Bookshelf Award 2024 Second Place Winner, True Crime, Bookfest Book Award A Peek Under the Hood is a true crime exposé of the case that freed an entire inner-city neighborhood from the perils and decay wrought by heroin trafficking. In 1994, DEA Special Agent Michael Pevarnik opened an investigation with his informant, a Vietnamese refugee who infiltrated a string of drug-dealing auto repair shops in Worcester, Massachusetts. His yearlong case, Operation Tune-Up, solved murders in New York; chased a wily fugitive through Puerto Rico; went undercover with cocaine smugglers in Panama; and, most impactfully, exposed the biggest heroin traffickers the old mill town had ever seen. When Worcester's Main South neighborhood was given a voice as a crime victim nearly two years after the virtual elimination of heroin in New England's second largest city-a phenomenon that reduced violent crime, stimulated business growth, increased property values, and improved the quality of life-it was the first time in US court history a community was allowed to give a victim-witness statement, declaring what they, not law enforcement, defined as a victory in the war on drugs.